When Your World Breaks Open: World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm

I am what hardcore gamers refer to with a shudder as a “casual gamer”. I don’t have a regular gaming schedule or even any desire to achieve specific gaming goals within a certain time frame. In the past two years of playing I still don’t have a max level character. Yet I’m very attached to the game. It’s a haven away from whatever issues I have in my life. In World of Warcraft there is no problem that can’t be solved by a little questing, gathering or crafting. Some days when I need to clear my mind I just go sight-seeing, running through zones that I technically shouldn’t be in if I value my virtual life.

So when the latest expansion, Cataclysm, was announced I was both excited and apprehensive. I love new goodies and quests and professions as much as the next person, but Stormwind is my “home”. The idea of  it being subjected to such a disastrous event struck me at my heart. As I wrote before, the Cataclysmic event was preceded by spiritual unrest in the city, with Doomsday cults and people bewailing their lost loved ones in the streets. This disturbed my soul, being asked to infiltrate a religious organization and convince people to leave their because their loved ones missed them. The ground shook frequently and a sense of forboding filled the air. As the cataclysmic event drew nearer I sincerely dreaded what it would do to my virtual “home”.

It happened. Lakes ran dry, volcanoes spewed forth, the waters churned, the wind formed furious funnel clouds, the earth was rent apart, entire towns were swallowed by the sea. Like the redneck child I am, I did the same thing I do when an icestorm, a tornado or heavy winds visit my town: I went out to look at the damage. Like when a real disaster strikes one is struck by the awesome fury of nature and full of relief to see what remains.

It’s amazing how there is something hopeful and refreshing about surviving a disaster. Though I was never in any real harm in WoW, the world I had come to know was in danger of changing forever. That’s a terrifying thing. It’s the very real possibility we face in the coming years as global warming continues to snowball. In the World of Warcraft universe you find yourself thinking from the point of view of your character: are the Gods mad at us? Is this the work of some sinister cult?  Is it simply a natural disaster? Has the gigantic dragon under the ocean done this to us?

My main character for a long time was a human paladin, a holy knight. She did good, served the Light and her place in the Universe was orderly, logical and perfectly settled. Now along with the latest expansion her powers and role has changed. I have to relearn how to play her, and in my impatience and frustration to get things done, I’ve turned to my alt character, a Dranei Death Knight. My DK is at home in this changing world, she functions much the same as she did before the event. Perhaps even stranger than the changes in the world are the changes in my in-game persona. The squeaky-clean paladin is faltering in this new world and cannot find her sea-legs, while the darker knight with a darker past is excelling and reveling in the post cataclysmic world.

It’s a great reminder of how such events change you. You are never the same person after a disaster that you were before it. Just as Stormwind City and all the other affected zones must learn to rise like a phoenix, so must I. I must adapt and shape myself to survive in the new circumstances I find myself in. Because there is talk of heresy among the night elves, the Doomsday cult still lives and far in the north they say there are men who have taken the shape of wolves.

Perhaps in a darker, more troubled world, I need to embrace the darkness to do good. Not every hero rides a white horse, and not every gift of the Gods turn us white as snow. With the dragon and the World Tree, the events in WoW vaguely resemble Ragnarok, and it makes me wonder, when Baldr returns is he darker, wiser and more grounded? Has he put the sunshine of youth aside for the gravity of a man? Will he find that you “can’t go home” after all?